Fairfield is set to eliminate two rail crossings that have recorded eight driver deaths since 1975, after landing $40 million in federal funding for what city officials call the community's largest infrastructure project ever. The money will fund a bridge carrying Symmes Road traffic over the tracks while permanently closing the nearby North Gilmore Road crossing, ending a problem the Butler County city has been trying to solve for about 15 years.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is announcing the award Friday at a press conference in Fairfield, with additional details expected that afternoon from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Federal Railroad Administrator David Fink at Cincinnati Union Terminal in Queensgate, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Duffy and Fink are also expected to announce a broader multi-billion-dollar investment in American rail during the same visit. Fairfield Council Member Ben Mann said the project will have a transformational impact on the city, per the same report.
Fairfield, a Butler County city of roughly 45,000 residents, will now move forward with a roughly $50 million plan to remove both street-level crossings. Symmes Road carries about 13,000 vehicles a day, while North Gilmore Road handles about 9,000, and both sit along a corridor where CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Amtrak together run more than 40 trains daily, the Enquirer reports. City officials have already secured about $10 million in state and county funds toward the total cost.
A Deadly, Decades-Old Bottleneck
Federal Railroad Administration records cited by local officials show both crossings rank among the nation's most hazardous, with Symmes Road landing in the top 7% of Ohio's most frequently blocked crossings, according to the Railway Supply trade outlet. Per the Enquirer, the two crossings have logged eight driver fatalities since 1975 — six at North Gilmore Road and two at Symmes Road — along with 11 injuries at North Gilmore and five at Symmes. Regional planning group OKI documented 66 crashes at train crossings across eight counties between 2016 and 2020, even though nearly three-quarters of crossings in the region had working gates, bells, or lights during that span, the Enquirer notes.
One crash still haunts the corridor's safety case. On March 24, 2025, the driver of a gray Subaru attempted to go around closed rail gates and drove into a parked train; the vehicle erupted in flames, though the driver escaped with injuries, per the Enquirer. Fairfield included video of that incident in its federal funding application. City officials say drivers have long tried to beat trains through the crossings, and Robyn Bancroft, cited in the same report, said blockages have grown worse as trains have gotten longer, with idling trains sometimes stalling traffic for several hours at a time as they queue for regional yards and carry more freight than ever before.
How the New Design Will Work
Under the design known as Alternative 4, or the Veteran Drive Alignment, Fairfield will build a bridge carrying Symmes Road traffic over the tracks while realigning the roadway south along Hicks Boulevard and Veteran Drive, according to project materials cited by the Symmes Road Rail Overpass project's virtual open house. North Gilmore Road will close entirely, with a cul-de-sac added at its northern approach; traffic will instead be rerouted to the new Symmes overpass or to an existing overpass at Holden and Bilstein boulevards, per the Enquirer. Fairfield prioritized safety improvements near North Gilmore Road in part because schools sit on the city's east side, the outlet reports.
The combined effect of building the overpass and closing North Gilmore Road will create more than 4.5 continuous miles of track without a single at-grade vehicle crossing just north of CSX's Queensgate Yard, one of the busiest rail classification hubs in the Midwest, according to the same Railway Supply account. The affected corridor, CSX's Cincinnati Terminal Subdivision, carries 40 to 50 trains daily between Louisville, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, and Detroit, while Symmes Road itself links State Route 4 to Interstate 75 and serves an area with roughly 36,000 workers within three miles, according to the Butler County Transportation Improvement District.
Years of Grants Building Toward Construction
Fairfield's push began in earnest in 2023, when the Federal Railroad Administration awarded a $3 million planning grant to the Butler County Transportation Improvement District for environmental and engineering studies, laying the groundwork for the design chosen this year. In November 2025, the Ohio Rail Development Commission approved $7.5 million from the state's Grade Crossing Elimination Program to help provide the local match required for federal construction dollars. That state program, created by Governor Mike DeWine in 2023 with a $100 million pool, wrapped up in mid-2026 after aiding 15 Ohio communities.
The $40 million federal award comes from the Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program, created under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which distributed roughly $1.15 billion nationwide in its FY 2025–2026 cycle. Fairfield's effort is also part of a coordinated Butler County strategy: the city of Hamilton has submitted a companion federal application for the North Hamilton Crossing–Butler Street Rail Project along the same CSX line, per Butler County Transportation Improvement District materials.
Construction on Fairfield's project should be underway by 2029 and complete by 2032, according to the Enquirer. Officials have not yet detailed the exact right-of-way acquisitions or utility relocations that will be needed before work begins, nor the extent of temporary traffic disruption expected along Hicks Boulevard and Veteran Drive once realignment starts.
